Latinos

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT LATINOS

Costa Mesa city attorneys are running out of options to prosecute a Latino activist who they say disrupted a 2006 City Council meeting before being escorted out of the council chambers and arrested, officials said Friday. City prosecutors are mulling over their options after a three-judge panel from Orange County Superior Court’s Appellate Division upheld a previous judge’s ruling for a second time this week to throw out the case against Benito Acosta, an activist who on Jan. 3, 2006, protested legislation urging city police to work with federal authorities on enforcing immigration laws.

Latino students in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District improved across the board in English-language arts on their most recent standardized tests, reports released Thursday show. The results for this year’s California Standardized Testing and Reporting, better known as STAR, reveal that more Latino students met or exceeded state standards for language arts than a year ago in Newport-Mesa. The California Department of Education has emphasized the need to close the “gap of achievement” between white students and African-American and Latino students.

When police began looking for a Newport Beach woman accused of committing a hate crime with two men, the last place they thought they’d find her would be sitting in court. But there she was, sitting in the audience and watching her two associates in Santa Ana court plead not guilty to beating up a Latino man based solely on his race, police said. Authorities quickly recognized her and arrested her, Newport Beach Lt. Craig Fox said. Veronica Weber, 49, along with two Tustin men, Jason Fenstermacher, 27, and Keith Hunter, 31, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to committing a hate crime and street terrorism, both charges enhanced for being alleged gang members, prosecutors said.

Costa Mesa police on Tuesday released a sketch of a rapist who tried to kill a prostitute at Harbor and MacArthur boulevards last week. The woman told investigators that the man, whom she said appeared to be Latino and in his late 20s, picked her up in a maroon Toyota-type pickup truck at about 10:45 p.m. Thursday. When she suggested going to a hotel room he pulled into an empty parking lot by a hotel, pulled out a knife and threatened her as he made her choose between giving him money or sex, police said.

Hate crimes overall decreased significantly across Orange County in 2007, but crimes targeting certain populations rose, according to a report released by the county Thursday. Latinos, who were central to national discussions last year regarding immigration, were targeted significantly more than in 2006, the study shows. The group pointed to public debate over immigration last year for potentially triggering a backlash against Latinos. Blacks continue to be the most targeted for hate crimes, despite comprising only a fraction of the county’s population and seeing a drop-off in instances this year, the Orange County Human Relations Commission found.

UCI broke ground on a $40.5-million medical building Friday that will host programs geared toward underserved communities and enable doctors to consult with patients statewide. One of the programs prepares students to work in predominantly Latino communities. The University of California’s five medical universities are each focusing on a different underserved population, said David Bailey, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the school of medicine at UCI. For example, UC Davis is focusing on bringing advanced medicine to rural communities, and the University of San Francisco is focusing on the urban homeless, Bailey said.

Ana Avila bagged a small sugar molded skull giving the couple purchasing it an unexpected, yet welcome lesson on the proper practices during Dia de los Muertos as she rang them up. Fuchsia is the color of happiness and purple the color of mourning, not orange and black, Avila said. It is commonly confused with Halloween since they fall so close together. The “day of the dead” falling every year on Nov. 1 is a celebration of the entrance into a new state of existence, not the belief that death is the end. Families erect colorful alters clad with candy skeletons, and other items for their dead ancestors.

I wonder if recently resigned Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales is as irritating to conservatives as he is to Latinos. I think he must be an embarrassment to all of us who believe in the structure of our government and the importance of keeping the powers balanced and actions constitutional. With all the brainy and ethical Republicans out there and with all the brainy and ethical Latinos out there, they couldn’t find one who wouldn’t make decisions that could break the public’s faith in the government?

ORANGE — Members of the local Latino community joined the fray Thursday in the bus drivers' strike, picketing outside the Orange County Transportation Authority and voicing support for the drivers. At 4:30 p.m. at the authority's headquarters on Main Street, about two dozen people took up signs, noisemakers, a drum and a megaphone to show their solidarity with the Teamsters union, which has been negotiating with the authority since the strike began Saturday. Representatives for the organizations present said they sided with the drivers because they felt the authority's demands were unfair.